I've been close to the 5:00 mark (w/ a drag suit) on the 400 free for a while and finally beat it today. Last 100 started feeling queazy. I was either going to make it or pass out. Kind of suprised I did make it because the no breathers left me physically drained. Fun workout!

Fly isn't as bad as it looks. Just recovery time before the next 125. First 25-50 yards after the faster 125s hurt really bad though. Workout originally called for 25 back/100 free for the 125s. We dropped the back stroke so that we could make the interval. For the timed 100 Fly, I felt great through 50 yards and then the pain kicked in.

Would have been solo today but my son has been getting up and swimming with me. He has made huge progress in the last couple weeks. I'm mostly impressed that a 13 yr old will get up at 4:45 in the morning to exercise on his own.

Still struggling to break 5:00 on the 400 w/ a drag suit on. Thought I might have had it today but came up a bit short again.

Missed the second and third 100s on 1:15 by a second or two. Dug deep and made the last one on 1:15. Struggled a bit converting the 75s to fly. 50 fly/25 free was no problem but somewhere in there, I just ran out of gas.

It rained yesterday. Then it rained last night. And pretty much all morning. Waded through a small lake to get to my car. Checked the weather maps for lightning before I headed to the pool. All the lightning was south of me so I figure the pool would be open. Wrong... apparently there was lightning somewhere. Given the large amounts of rain on radar (and possiblility that one rumble of thunder would set us back another 30 mintues), we decided to come back at lunch. I like doing more distance be we made the most out of what we had today. Kept all the 400's between 5:05 and 5:10. Really wanted to make 5:00 on the last one but came up a bit short. Dave ended up helping me a lot with fly. He gave me a lot of things to work on and it was nice to be coached a little. Hopefully it will translate to some improvement in the near future.

Roger showed up today after a two week trip to the SEC Championships and North Africa. Lots of great stories about South Sudan and Kenya. Great to have him back!

Good workout overall. I'm getting faster with the drag suit but I've still got a long way to go. Breast stroke is improving nicely. I descended to a 38 pushing off from the wall. I still get sloppy when I try to swim hard but it is much better.

I took the option rest on the 16 x 100. This is a set I'd like to eventually be able to do with a drag suit on and not following someone else. Today, I had my own lane and the drag suit on and still had trouble even with the rest. The first 4x100s I made. The next two were a big struggle and I ended up about 5 seconds off the 1:15 pace.

Got a traffic ticket this morning . Got pulled over at the pool so everyone saw I was in "trouble". Apparently my brake lights aren't working. So, as I walk in, eveyone looks at me like I'm a hardened criminal. They all expect something serious like speeding. It was kind of a let-down to say "my brake lights were out". Took the cop 20 minutes to write up the ticket. That cut the warm-up short but the 400 on 6:00 was a good substitute. I was a bit disappointed on the last 400 and the timed 500. Missed the 400 split by 10 seconds. I really wanted to make the 500 on 6:15. Still, its the best I've done with a drag suit.

Made an apheresis donation yesterday at the Red Cross so I was still feeling a bit sluggish. Never could get my fly going. Negative split all the 200+ freestyle sets. Very thankful to have HSA welcome me in on Saturday mornings.

Felt pretty good today. Struggled some with the fly but I was able to finish strong on the 75 Frees on 1:00.

Video is 100 Breast stroke. I did a 1:20. My meet times are in the 1:13 range so 1:20 is probably some improvement with a drag suit and a 3k workout.

Things I think I'm doing better:
* Kick is narrorwer... maybe not enough. When I roll my knees inward as my kick finishes, I tend to set up better for a narrower kick. Unfortunately, it is more natural for my knees to roll outward so I have to really focus on this.
* Shorter pull. This just feels so much better. Is is short enough? Or am I still getting stuck in the 'prayer' position. My arms still seem to sweep pretty wide in the video.
* Dive. Don't know if this looks any better but tucking my head more on the block seemed to help me hit the water cleaner.

Things I'm pretty sure I'm still doing wrong:
* Turns. Still swinging my right arm high over my head. It's painfully obvious when I watch the video but I'm hardly aware of it when I'm swimming.
* Glide. I'm not getting much consistency. Sometimes it works out about right and other times I go too deep or too shallow. Near the end, I'm dying for O2 and I'm more than willing to take a shorter push off the wall in exchange for that first breath.

Worked up to 50 fly on the Up/Down and then fell apart. Once we went to 1:40 I was able to get back up to 75 fly. Breast stroke felt great! Held under 1:30 with no problems at all. Changes have made a huge difference.

We have about 65 workouts we rotate through each day. Since we don't have a coach on deck, this works really well. We don't spend 15 minutes debating what we are going to do... we just do the next workout. Some workouts are more memorable that others for different reasons. This one sticks out because of all the fly and the pain that goes along with that. That's a good thing because these workouts tend to be milestones for me. I remember what I did the prevoius time a lot easier and I can guage my progress. Two years ago when I first started I thought the team was nuts for just trying something like this. I mostly did freestyle and mixed in fly where I could. For a while, whenever I saw this workout, I'd sigh, get out of the pool and go retrieve my fins. A few months ago, I started making the splits by removing my drag suit. Today, I was determined to make the splits with my drag suit on... and I did. The 175 fly was the only split I was in any danger of missing but I managed with a few seconds to spare. Its amazing the progress that can be made with persistence and a supportive team behind you.